Here is good reason why that wonderful creature should be made in the image and likeness of his Creator, so that when the invisible Godhead should put on the Manhood, It might shine forth to the creatures in Its own fit likeness among the things that

are seen..

But for fear we should go too far in trying to search out the counsel of God, let us think of this truth in a manner that is easier for us to understand, though, in so doing, we shall only be seeing a small part of it at

once.

For when we think that it was for so great a purpose that God made man in His own image, we may be sure that it was not only in this and that, as we make a picture that shews like on one side, but wholly, truly, and thoroughly, that he was made in that likeness. And so it is, indeed, that man was made in the image of God, in himself, and toward God, and toward the world.

In himself, he is a reasonable soul, with understanding, power, and will. His wisdom and knowledge are the image of the Wisdom and Knowledge of God; his will of the Almighty Will; his life of that which the Father hath in Himself; his love and hatred of that with which God Loves good

and Hates evil; his memory and foresight of God's eternal Record and Foreknowledge; his conscience of God's Judgment.

Toward the world, he stands forth above all creatures, ruling them in God's name, and disposing of them as in God's stead. He makes laws for them by a wisdom they do not understand, and moves them by powers they cannot see, and moulds them to his own will and purpose, within the bounds. that God has set for him, as God does throughout all worlds, and without bound.

Yea, even toward God Himself, he stands forth in the image of Him that created him, and answers his Maker, for good or for evil, with powers that are a likeness of His own.

And this is what I wish you above all to mark, and lay up in your minds to think of again and again :—that man is so made in the image of God, that he is able to have dealings with God, and to know, and love, and obey Him, in a way that lower creatures cannot; or again, to set himself against Him in a way that they cannot. The fowls of

the air and the beasts of the field do God's 'will, and know it not; but man knows it, and does it or does it not as he wills, and so is either an image of God, in God and after God, or (dreadful thought) against God.

a

What must come of the thing that is made striving against Him Who made it, reason. itself cannot but see. Yet so it is that there are creatures made in God's image mad enough to set themselves up against Him, and pretend to be a kind of gods to themselves and to whatsoever and whomsoever they can get under them, in such wise as Satan is called "the god of this world," a god of ungodliness, a false image of the Almighty, worshipped in blindness, and turning away the eyes from the truth, to the destruction of itself and all that go after it. Such is the man who determines to have his own way. Such, man tends to be without the grace of God, but not such was he created. He was created in grace and in goodness. All those powers in which he is like his Maker were then in their right place and order, and had life put into them for good, and were made to be in goodness, as well as in their being, the image and likeness of God Himself, by the power of His Spirit upon them. And this is the kind of likeness to which it is His Will to bring us back after our grievous fall.

Such is the likeness new-created on earth, and in our flesh, in the Person of the ever

» 2 Cor. iv. 4.

blessed Son, only that in Him it is not merely, so to speak, the outside likeness, as in Adam, shining back to the light that falls on it, but the very Godhead, shining forth from within the soul and body of the New Man, our Lord, the second Adam, Who hath life in Himself, and quickeneth whom He will.

So much, then, has been shewn us of the counsel of God, that we may be bold to think what we were made for, and need not fear to say that we know it was for something better than to run after the things of this world, which are really beneath us; even that we might know our Creator, and willingly do His Will, and answer His Love with love.

b

Hence, too, it is that in the Gospel we are taught to aim at being perfect, as our "Father Which is in Heaven is perfect;" while, on the other hand, we are taught to know Him by means of what we can see in ourselves, in things which we do, in a manner, by nature, according to His Will.

By the care and kindness that are natural to a father we learn what must be the care taken of us all by Him Who made a father's and a mother's heart to care for children.

b S. Matt. v. 48.

And again, by the largeness of His Bounty and the freedom of His Mercy we learn how to give, and to pity, and to forgive.

But, again, remember that it is not only toward one another but toward God Himself that this His image shews, and may, through grace, shew bright and true.

And

we know, from His own Word, that He loves to see His own image in His people, as a father loves to see his own likeness in the faces of his children, and has bidden us do these things, that we "may be the children of our Father Which is in Heaven."

And as the Angels are called sons of God, for that He has made them spirits, in a manner like Himself, with reason, and freewill, and power to imitate His Goodness, so He has also told us that "they which shall be accounted worthy to obtain that world, and the resurrection from the dead," shall be "equal unto the Angels," for they shall be "the children of God, being the children of the resurrection."

" d

Now this ought to give us higher thoughts than we have of ourselves and of one another; so that we should not be able to rest in anything short of God for our happiness, or to take up with this world and its vain

« S. Matt. v. 45.

* S. Luke xx. 35, 36.